Unlocking True Healing: Transformative Journeys from Trauma to Self-Love

Break Toxic Relationship Cycles | with Kel Cal

Michael: One of the biggest lessons I've learned in the last. 14 years of my healing journey, almost 14 years, which is incredible is to think about my thoughts and to just take a step back and be like, why does this person do this to me? And if you're not willing to do that, like you can't be helped. And I know that's so hard for people to hear. And I've interviewed incredible human beings, both male and female who have been on this show, who have left abusive relationships. And they always acknowledge their responsibility. What did it really take to you? What did it really take for you to get to that place where you could acknowledge your role in this?

Kel: Yeah. It actually was another rock bottom in the form of COVID where my greatest fear came true. And that was I was forced to be alone with myself.

Michael: Terrifying…

Kel: The time, that was terrifying, especially when all of the distractions that I was using to avoid and escape myself because I was still carrying a tremendous amount of trauma were removed. And I really realized oh, fuck, and it was then that I recognized that the most toxic relationship of all was not the relationship with the then abusive now ex husband, it was the relationship with myself and it was in recognizing that the relationship with myself is not only the most important relationship that there is, But that every relationship in your life is just a mirror of that, that I really allowed myself to recognize the patterns that I was still living. It allowed me to recognize all the coping mechanisms I had developed to avoid the trauma that I was still holding onto. And that's really when I began, I would say, the real healing journey, because before then, I thought I could just think my way out. I thought I could use mindset and personal development to just high vibe my way through the trauma and avoid the part where you actually feel.

Michael: Yeah, that doesn't work.

Kel: Yeah, no, that doesn't work. Hello, toxic positivity. That was me. I was, like, the high vibe chick. And it was incredibly toxic. And meanwhile, I had substance abuse problems. I was using drugs. I was basically snorting Adderall every single morning and a pharmaceutical crackhead because I could just be more productive and I could do more. And if I could do more than maybe I could finally feel like I was enough and I had addictions to exercising and I was always doing more and it was still never enough and eating disorders and all the things. I drank a lot of dumb bitch juice and dumb bitch juice is the metaphorical concoction of using things outside of yourself to change how you feel inside. And it wasn't until I allowed myself to just pause and COVID was that pause and to stop running and hiding from myself and allow myself to have the courage to peek beneath the covers of what I was really hiding from and see all that was still there, see the trauma, see the parts of myself that were carrying so much shame and pain and tracing that back all the way to childhood that I actually began. The real healing and reconnecting with my body and using somatic practices and real like true deep healing tools that I was able to actually start to experience the internal shifts that were necessary to change my external reality. And it was within transforming the relationship with myself that my life began to transform in a true, genuine way, not just Oh, it looks good on the outside again, but inside I still feel like shit. I still feel like I'm not enough. I still feel all this pain and shame, but I actually began to experience, love and compassion and inner peace and to not have panic attacks every single day, and it was a different experience in life, but it wasn't until I began to do that deep inner healing work.

The Secret to Attracting Your Soulmate | with Sami Wunder

Michael: The implications of what it means to be raised in households with love, without feelings, without affection, with, this is the way that you act and this is how you should be and the impact of that in our adulthood, because we're ultimately always going to be the sum total of all of our experiences, right? So everything that we bear witness to in childhood, it gets ingrained in us, right? It gets implemented in us. We pay attention to it. We've for whether it's good or bad, decide that is the way that we should behave in the world. So to have your feelings turned off to be in masculine energy, which I'll probably have you define here in a second as well, and to also be pushing towards high achievement while you would look at those things in childhood and think these are great. This is how you navigate the world. The world. It's but in adulthood and especially when seeking a relationship and love and compassion, like it's actually a giant magnet of the polar opposite. It just pushes everybody away. I'm so curious as you were. As you were in this and you're like, starting to notice was there a moment? Because I think this is what happens for a lot of people. This is what happened for me in dating too. There was a moment where I sat and I realized, I was like, oh, the reason this isn't working is because of me. And it was like just so abundantly clear. And that takes a lot of guts. First and foremost, I think you gotta have some courage to look in the mirror. Was there a specific moment for you where you're like, wait a second, I'm the problem.

Sami: Yes, absolutely. So my transformation point was, I think when I was having all these heartbreaking experiences, men fizzling out, ghosting, things not working out, just like guys wanting to just take me to bed, not wanting to get to know me as a person. I just said, men are intimidated. Men are intimidated by my brains. Men are intimidated by my success. Men are intimidated because I have an opinion. It was my narrative to protect myself. It was my narrative to not look deep within myself, because when we put the problem on the other side, at least we can absolve ourselves of it. Personal responsibility, but it was when I met a man who was far more successful than I was. And, he was a lawyer from New York and there was like electric physical attraction and he treated me so well and everything was going great. And then two months down the connection his effort started to dwindle, like stopped hearing from him. And of course my feminine intuition said, if he's not messaging, he's not interested, but I had, I was surrounded by all these equally masculinized German girlfriends who were like, come on, text him. He just wants to hear from you and figure out what the problem is and solve the problem and, take it ahead. And so I remember messaging him and saying, Hey, is everything okay? I haven't heard from you. And him going, You're so lovely. You're so attractive. I like you so much. I just Don't feel it. I just feel like our connection is not deepening, and so I don't think it's working and I think that was my moment of, pure heartbreak. I think I went into this angry, bitter energy for two hours that evening where I was like, all men are like this and I eat guys and I'm gonna like just get it. Super successful. And I don't need a man. And I'm not gonna like even look at this aspect of my life. It's not working. And then I woke up the next morning and I was like, Sammy, you are the common denominator in all of these experiences and don't give up on love because I think love is that thing in life that really brings us to our knees and, And we feel extremely vulnerable in love. I think success is so much easier to achieve because you can push through and control so much more than you can in love, because in love, there is another party involved and they may or may not want to be with you. They may or may not like you. And that involves rejection and rejection involves vulnerability and we all resist vulnerability. And so that was the day when I woke up and I was like, no, I'm not going to give up on love. I know I have a very good heart and I know the man who's gonna really get to experience the real Sami is going to be so lucky. And I'm going to work for that. I'm going to work to bring out that real Sami. And of course, it was a journey because the men I was attracting before I did. The inner work and before I, which today I call my six-step love success framework, today I call it that. But back then, I understood that I was just. Showing up with a mask and dating, I had a mask on and I had walls up and nobody could really experience the real Sami. It was just like the strong, successful facade. It was the impression I wanted to give men. And so, the work involved, putting that mask down. And letting the man in front of me see the true me, even if it felt uncomfortable, even if it felt scary, even if it brought up fears of judgment and rejection.

How Somatic Work Transforms Relationships | with Lauren Zoeller

Michael: That's like a courageous thing to do. Yeah, right Why? Like I want to narrow that in because I think it's important because a lot of people you know I've coached thousands of people over the years 10 minutes for free I always have I always will, and that's people reaching out and ask for help. Cause at least here with what we've been able to create at Think Unbroken, like that's accessible. Most people don't feel like they have access to anything or anyone, but there's always someone like, what role does courage play in that moment? If any.

Lauren: Yeah. It plays a huge role because so many people. If you've lived in isolation, or if you've never really sat with rejection before, like really allowed yourself to orient to rejection, and you live your life constantly trying to run away from rejection because it feels like it could potentially kill you, it feels really unsafe to be potentially rejected by someone. Like, when we're looking at a nervous system, it you know, looking at it from a nervous system lens. We are humans who are wired for connection and especially if you experience trauma as a kid and a lot of that trauma came Relationally between a parent who wasn't able to love you unconditionally or a caretaker of some sort if you didn't have parents that weren't able to love you unconditionally Someone potentially rejecting you if you reach out for help can trigger that Relational rupture of you feeling oh, my gosh, I'm not loved unconditionally. Nobody loves me. I am alone. I have to do this alone. And so what I've noticed in my practice is people won't reach out for help because it doesn't feel safe. And the reality is that when you reach out and you use your voice, you allow someone else to step into that space, but you have to start thinking differently and feeling differently into that. Because it is, it can often times be rooted in trauma. If it's hard for you to ask for help, chances are there is some sort of relational pattern that's making it's way in to your current situation where your nervous system is saying, if I reach out for help, and I'm potentially rejected, it means death. And that's why people don't reach out for help is because their nervous system is pinging survival.

Blooming with Self-Love: How to Reclaim Your Worth | with Aneta Waclaw

Michael: You know, you're not taking care of your health to the point that you're sick. You know, you're in shitty friendships to the point that you're being taken advantage of the actual question that I've come to find becomes the kind of the marker for the shift in life is how long are you going to put up with it? Yeah, and how long are you going to wait until you take action? Where? Where's the intersection here between the. The affirmation and the self-love and the action required. Like how do, how do people actually take those steps? How do they actually create action, build momentum, and have transformation? 

Aneta Waclaw: One of the biggest things that has helped me is training my brain to see the good in everything. You know, nobody's perfect. We all go through shit. We all go through trauma. I can sit here and, and self pity and tell you and cry about how my ex-husband was a manipulator, how he abused me emotionally and mentally, and sometimes even physically.

But at the end of the day, I chose to find. Good in that if I always say when you want something, it comes. It doesn't come to you on a gold platter. It comes to you in the form of challenges and as toxic and as unhealthy. The marriage and the whole relationship was, I wouldn't change it for the world, but I wouldn't go back.

And I say that because I grew up in a household where my parents, uh, were born and raised in Poland and then they came to the States when they were around 18 years old and they figured it out. And then they had my brother and they did everything that they could to provide for our family and in the physical.

But when it came to communication emotions. All of that was completely non-existent. So I was an emotional being. I didn't know how to communicate. I had anger issues, all of it, you name it. And then when I was telling myself, I was like, God, I want to be more emotionally stable and I want to communicate better.

And when I said that I was introduced to my ex-husband at 20 years old and. He completely tore me apart, and it wasn't until about a year of being with him I knew I wasn't supposed to be getting married to him. I knew I wasn't supposed to be moving in with him. I knew I wasn't supposed to be with him for the long term, but eventually I learned that he was the answer to my prayers because he was.

Ripping me apart, so I had the opportunity to rebuild myself, and when I started to be grateful for that, I always encourage people, be grateful for everything, because you will not be given anything that you can't handle, and don't be surprised. If you ask for flowers and you get rain because you can't have flowers without rain.

And that was the same thing. I couldn't learn how to control my emotions if my ex-husband didn't completely blow up my emotions every day. I couldn't learn how to be mentally resilient. If he didn't try to manipulate me every day into thinking I'm a terrible person. I'm ugly, I'm stupid, I'm fat, all the whole nine yards, and being grateful for those challenges.

I know it can be hard to look in the moment and say, this shit sucks, but one day I am gonna be grateful for it. Because you should be thankful that you're not where you used to be. And I always tell people, be grateful you're not where you used to be, because the future ahead is brighter if you choose to view it that way.